


Hold My Breath

by sparkjolt (infinisei)



Series: The Hold My Breath 'Verse [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Car Accidents, F/M, Hydra (Marvel), Kidnapping, Soul Bond, Soulmates, WinterShock - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 09:51:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5159327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinisei/pseuds/sparkjolt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was cold enough for any human spending a significant amount of time in the outdoors to be turning blue with the beginnings of frostbite, but the Winter Soldier wasn’t human. </p>
<p>He never had been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold My Breath

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Wintershock fandom! I'm so excited to be my posting my first work on AO3; it's been a long time coming!
> 
> After a long hiatus away from writing, I'm posting this with a new determination and a new confidence to put my works out there. Soulmates are one of my favorite concepts, so I figured I'd contribute to this fandom by posting my own take on the trope. I hope you enjoy!

The snow fell silently through the towering trees, blanketing the ground in white.

Visually, it was beautiful, but the lack of sound and the dead landscape made an eerie stillness in the air. The trees were bare except for the lines of snow that clung to it and the sky wasn’t visible with the falling snow and overcast sky.

There were no signs of life...except for the shadow creeping across the forest floor.

It was cold enough for any human spending a significant amount of time in the outdoors to be turning blue with the beginnings of frostbite, but the Winter Soldier wasn’t human.

He never had been.

_You are an asset, soldier_ , his handler had told him as soon as he was lucid enough from the ice and the chair. _You do not have a life. You do not have a soul. You do not have a soulmate. You exist only to serve the Soviet State, to follow orders._

Then, he was handed the file of a greying, balding man with unnaturally round eyes and no neck. His handler briefly muttered while shuffling paperwork. “Serves you right, you venal, boorish idiot.”

The target would be driving out to the mountains. He was to eliminate the target in any means necessary. No witnesses.

After that, he was dumped at a drop-off zone fifty miles from the site. By his estimation, he was now a mile away.

His back twinged as he swiftly ducked under a sagging branch. He hadn’t been able to check the injury, as his superiors had only given him time to arm himself. He couldn't even remember when he had received the injury. Given the strength of the pain, he assumed the wound was a deep laceration, but he wasn’t compromised, so the mission continued.

A faint blare, then a harsh clash echoed through the forest. He tensed, assessing for any potential threat, his metal arm clicking through its settings. His eyes narrowed.

Without warning, he was full-on sprinting towards the origin of the disturbance.

The smoking heaps of metal confirmed what he thought: a car crash.

He lingered at the treeline, hidden from view of the road. The vehicles were now aflame; it wouldn’t be long before the fire reached the gas tank.

Smoothly pulling out a handgun, he strode out into the open, leaping over the curb and approaching the first car. The smoke billowing from the vehicle was almost blanketing the view within, but there was no need to cool the flames when his serum-enhanced eyes could make out the sightless eyes of his target.

It seemed his work had been done for him. His only job now was to tie up loose ends.

The asset checked the passenger seats. There was nobody in the back, but the slumped form of a woman was in the front passenger seat. She was draped across the armrest, seeming to have made a worthless attempt to get her companion free before passing out. He quickly dismissed her. Regardless of whether or not she was still alive, the fire would consume her within minutes.

On to the other car, then.

He was just walking to the faded sedan when a flash of red in the snow on the edge of the road caught his eye. Not blood, but a strip of cloth. The second driver, then. He approached with a wary curiosity, his eyes falling upon a much smaller form.

It wasn’t the driver, but a young girl, around seven or eight. She was unconscious, lying spread-eagled on her back and her left arm twisted at an unnatural angle. She must have been in the front of the car without her seatbelt on, and she had been flung from the car like a shot put when the impact from the other car had come.

Her chest rose and fell softly with her breaths; she was alive.

Before he could even make another thought, she stirred, as if she had sensed his stare. Nose scrunching up in pain, she shifted in discomfort before her eyes fluttered open.

And her gaze landed solely on him.

She might have cried out. His weapon might have slipped through his fingers, clattering on the asphalt. His arm may have spasmed wildly, making a shot of pain shoot up through his arm when he braced himself awkwardly on the ground, his eyes still locked on hers.

That might have happened, but he wasn’t sure. Mostly because he was too occupied with the wave of _something_ that struck him full on the chest and moved in a way that was all-consuming, unstoppable and never-ending. It touched every single cell in his body, altering him in a way he knew had changed him permanently.

When it ended, he found himself on his knees and hunched over, panting loudly, shaking.

_What…was that?_

As if summoned by his question, an image overcame him.

 

_A woman with short brown locks twisted into an elegant bun crouched to smooth his shirt, examining him in a critical manner._

_“But mama,” he heard himself complain. “Why do I have to dress up when I’m just meeting Steve?”_

__

_“James Buchannan Barnes, just because you’re playing with Steve does not mean you shouldn’t look presentable to the world. You’re my boy and I will_ not _have my son in rags.” The boy squirmed as his mother fussed at his hair. “Besides, you might meet your soulmate while you’re out and about, and you don’t want her to think you’re a juvie.”_

__

_“What’s a soulmate?”_

__

_She paused in her examination. “A soulmate…is your other half. The person that will always love you and stand by your side. It’ll be the girl you marry one day.”_

__

_The boy wrinkled his nose. “But mom…how will I know who my soulmate is?”_

__

_The woman’s eyes seemed to go far away. “Your eyes will meet…and it’ll be as if your souls recognize each other and…shift so that you’ll always feel her, always sense how she’s doing. If the bond is extra strong, then you’ll be able to find her, like a moth to a flame.”_

__

_The boy seemed to consider her words. “Well…I don’t want one,” he declared. “Why would I want to feel a girl’s feelings?”_

__

_That brought a wry smile to the mother’s face. “You’d be surprised…”_

He shook his head to clear the memory, his mind fuzzing as the images fell away. He couldn’t remember where it had come from, but as soon as the scene ended, he knew…

He had found his soulmate.

_Impossible_ , he scolded himself as soon as the thought formed. He was the Winter Soldier; he had no soul and no soulmate. Besides, the girl lying in front of him was nowhere near ready to have a soulmate. He instantly rebelled against the idea of having a typical soulmate relationship with one so innocent and young. She was just a child.

_A child that will always be yours_ , a familiar female voice whispered. _And you hers._

Suddenly, without knowing why, he found himself crouched in front of the girl, gently lifting her off of the snow, before turning to the forest and melting back into the forest.

******

The rush of water trickling downstream told him to show his pace. He had run as fast as he could while covering their tracks, trying not to jostle her too much.

Crouching low to the ground, he made sure she was propped securely against a tree before working to mend her injuries. He quickly found two twigs sturdy enough to brace her broken arm and he pulled some choke wire from his pocket to bind it all together. She whimpered slightly as he tightened the knot, but she didn't stir further. For her head, he scooped some snow and wrapped it in a strip of cloth and pressed it to her head. Then, instinctively knowing the bond still needed time to settle, he hesitatingly switched positions with her, settling into a groove of the tree trunk and enveloping her in his arms, one hand firmly gripping his gun.

Something was obnoxiously shoving itself into his kidney. Frowning, he found a small bulge in the girl’s back pocket with a chain clasping it to the belt strap. Pulling the chain, he caught the wallet that fell into his hand. Opening the clasp, he noticed a note with a blocky scrawl: _If you are reading this, then you have stolen a kid’s ID. If you don’t give it back, you won’t ever go potty again. So give it back._

Without his permission, the Winter Soldier let out a snort. He was suddenly faced with that the fact that his soulmate carried a wallet with her ID, emergency contact information, and a note threatening its potential thief.

He studied the information on the card. Darcy Lewis. Born October 6, 1990. Eight years old, then. Had barely even started grade school.

His eyes strayed to her features. Dark brown hair curled around a soft face with a button nose and pointed chin.

 

She didn’t belong anywhere near him, with his blood-stained hands and his metal arm forged in the darkest, most corrupt places. There was no trace of anything good and honorable in him. She should be surrounded by people who weren’t surrounded by death.

 

He found a part of himself wishing he was something different, but he cynically stopped himself. They were longing thoughts of an impossible existence. There was no point in hoping for something that could never be.

An unfamiliar feeling rose up within him. If his superiors were to find out about her, if they got her in their ruthless clutches…

His hands clenched. No, that could not happen. What had happened was absurd (if he even was correct about the discovery of his soulmate), but if he was her soulmate, then she was his to protect, no matter the cost.

Even if the cost meant himself.

It would only be a matter of time before his handlers found out their asset couldn’t be found and searched for him. He had to have her safe and away from him before that happened.

He would stay until she was stable enough to mobilize, then he would take her somewhere safe, away from the accident, so that his superiors would never find her, never even know she existed.

******

Of course it didn’t go as planned.

He would have stayed for longer like he had wanted, but she had stirred once, moaning, then curled into herself and retched the contents of her stomach.

Concerned, he brushed her hair away from her face and tried to see if she was responsive, but she blinked drowsily, only seeming to take in his features for a moment before slipping back into unconsciousness.

A cold fist clenched in the pit of his stomach. She should have woken up by now, and she definitely shouldn’t be as sick as she was. Additionally, he had to worry about the harsh weather. She needed help—help he couldn’t give her—which was why he needed to get her back to civilian life, where she could be taken to a hospital. It was the only thing he could do to ensure her health.

And so, when the sun began to rise, he rose from his perch under the tree and began hiking down the trail.

They were lucky they came across a cabin inn tucked away. The only hotel for miles. Lights filtered through the closed curtains, but there were no signs of any lively activity.

This was the best place he could leave her in the time he had left.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, a certain neediness overwhelmed him, and he tightened his grip on her, suddenly unwilling to let her go. Worries raced through his head. They could find her and he wouldn’t know. She could get into another accident or be the victim of a mugger and he could be sleeping in the ice while it happened, unaware that his soulmate had died needing him.

But, if he did stay with her, then she would be dead for sure.

A deep, bitter fury rose within him. Fury at his superiors. Fury at the universe to connect them together in the worst possible situation. And fury at himself for his inability to do _anything_.

But there truly was nothing he could do, short of putting them on the run and ensuring their deaths, so he walked, stiff-legged and with a clenched jaw, up to the kitchen door of the inn, the place he believed would have the earliest activity. He lowered her right in front of the entrance so that someone could find her easily.

Lingering, he brushed a few stubborn strands of hair off of her face, taking in all of her features and hoping with all of his being that he wouldn’t forget her the same way he had with everything else.

“Goodbye, кукла,” he murmured. “Будьте безопасны и хорошо.”

Then, turning swiftly away, he returned to the forest, not looking back.

**Author's Note:**

> I have some ideas for expanding this series, so please let me know what you think! Reviews fuel the embers in my heart. ;D


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